Repentance ceremony on Aug. 14th, Year of the Dragon

On Sep. 16th, 2024 (August 14th, Year of the Dragon), good men and believing women inside and outside HCMC returned to Hoang Phap pagoda to attend a periodical penitential ritual.

Junior Thich Tam Trong, Abbot of Nhat Phap pagoda, Dong Nai province had a dharma talk to all Buddhists before the rite.

As a Buddhist, each person has two families of blood and spirituality. We need to balance in maintaining and nurturing our spiritual family and blood family despite our busy lives. We often have the notion of "Where is better to practice than at home" or "There is no need to go to the temple to practice, practice is in the mind!" However, how to practice the mind if we do not go to the temple to learn the Dharma, how can we practice at home? Is it as easy as we think? When Buddhists still have family life, that is, there are many tasks to communicate in society, many obstacles, it is easy to give rise to a mind of annoyance, anger,...

Going to the temple to study and practice helps us reduce worldly concerns, rely on the mass to practice and receive good energy, be close to the Master-Patriarch to listen to the sutras, then learn the Dharma to open up wisdom. Moreover, each person should arrange time for studying, practice and make a vow to maintain it, every day there must be at least one session (chanting sutras, reciting Buddha's name, listening to the Dharma,...) to apply it to life.

The monk reminded the mass to try to maintain faith in the Triple Gem and the path of practice. 

The monk repeated four verses of the Most Master: 

“If someone is sure that he can live until getting old,

At a young age just slowly practice.

But if he does not know for sure about it,

He must immediately practice not to be slow”. 

In order to encourage the mass to diligently practice and do good deeds thoroughly without being controlled by five desires, he taught the listeners to practice the additional method of "backup battery" or "cultivate backup, practice more" to equip themselves with solid knowledge to overcome the sea of suffering of samsara. 

After the Dharma talk, the mass entered the penitential ritual as usual. 

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